But I gather from what you say that this is not the custom here.

You seem to have plenty of meaningless customs, but none of those that would help along.

We are in advance, certainly.

I suppose I shall have to give up the social side altogether;" and Henrietta, though she went about with her guidebook and pencil and wrote a letter to the Interviewer about the Tower (in which she described the execution of Lady Jane Grey), had a sad sense of falling below her mission.
The incident that had preceded Isabel's departure from Gardencourt left a painful trace in our young woman's mind: when she felt again in her face, as from a recurrent wave, the cold breath of her last suitor's surprise, she could only muffle her head till the air cleared.

She could not have done less than what she did; this was certainly true.